OEDIPUS TYRANNUS Argumentative Essay Example For Students

OEDIPUS TYRANNUS Argumentative Essay A monologue from the play by Sophocles NOTE: This monologue is reprinted from Greek Dramas. Ed. Bernadotte Perrin. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1904. OEDIPUS: I am the son of Polybus, who reignsAt Corinth, and the Dorian MeropeHis queen; there long I held the foremost rank,Honoured and happy, when a strange event(For strange it was, though little meritingThe deep concern I felt) alarmed me much:A drunken reveller at a feast proclaimedThat I was only the supposed sonOr Corinths king. Scarce could I bear that dayThe vile reproach. The next, I sought my parentsAnd asked of them the truth; they too, enraged,Resented much the base indignity.I liked their tender warmth, but still I feltA secret anguish, and, unknown to them,Sought out the Pythian oracle. In vain.Touching my parents nothing could I learn;But dreadful were the miseries it denouncedAgainst me. Twas my fate, Apollo said,To wed my mother, to produce a raceAccursed and abhorred; and last, to slayMy father who begat me. Sad decree!Lest I should eer fulfil the dire prediction,Instant I fled from Corinth, by the starsGuiding my hapless journey to the placeWhere thou reportst thi s wretched king was slain.But I will tell thee the whole truth. At lengthI came to where the three ways meet, when, lo!A herald, with another man like himWhom thou describst, and in a chariot, met me.Both strove with violence to drive me back;Enraged, I struck the charioteer, when straight,As I advanced, the old man saw, and twiceSmote me o th head, but dearly soon repaidThe insult on me; from his chariot rolledProne on the earth, beneath my staff he fell,And instantly expired! Th attendant trainAll shared his fate. If this unhappy strangerAnd Laius be the same, lives there a wretchSo cursed, so hateful to the gods as I am?Nor citizen nor alien must receive,Or converse, or communion hold with me,But drive me forth with infamy and shame.The dreadful curse pronounced with my own lipsShall soon oertake me. I have stained the bedOf him whom I had murdered; am I thenAught but pollution? If I fly from hence,The bed of incest meets me, and I goTo slay my father Polybus, the best,The tender est parent. This must be the workOf some malignant power. Ye righteous gods!Let me not see that day, but rest in death,Rather than suffer such calamity.